Kaspersky Labs earlier today wrote about an attack they discovered in January that compromised Asus' Live Update Utility. The attack affected 57,000 Kaspersky customers and may have hit as many as 500,000 computers around the world. Dubbed "Operation ShadowHammer," the attack injected a Trojan into the Live Update Utility and used authentic Asus software certificates to install itself onto targeted systems.

The Aero 15-Y9 is over $1000 more expensive than the Aero 15-X9 and yet both configurations perform about the same in all of our tests. Is there really a reason to get the pricier version? Based on our numbers, the less expensive Aero 15-X9 is the better option by a very wide margin.

Apple Card brings together hardware, software, and services to deliver a complete financial management and payment experience focused on providing "a healthier financial life" to its customers. This solution comes with a rewards program called Daily Cash, no fees, low interest, a physical titanium card for payments at locations without Apple Pay support, and more.

HMD Global may have come out of the storm of the Nokia 7 Plus's case with data violations relatively unscathed but the company will not be able to breathe a sigh of relief, as yet another Nokia device has been caught up in an unfortunate incident. According to reports, a Nokia 3.1 has exploded in the hands of a user in Europe.

The Cupertino giant has unveiled the next generation of its TV arm. However, it is not a device; rather, it is a software- and content-based upgrade. The new Apple TV app allows users to cherry-pick channels or streaming providers at need. They could also add Apple TV Plus: the company's new panel of original shows available via subscription.

Warner Music Group has signed Endel, the stress-reducing sound app, in what is the first algorithm to sign with a major label. Endel promises to release a total of 20 albums by the end of the year and has launched an Amazon Alexa skill that is the first to use predictive mechanics.

Apple News just got a spinoff that includes 300 magazine subscriptions and is simply called News+. Available for US$9.99 a month (the first month is free), this service is also rolling out in Canada in both French and English. Australia and the UK will follow later this year as well.

Transparency Market Research's latest report is based on the observation that the demand for a 'smart' or 'connected' living room is growing steadily these days. It may consist of entertainment or media hardware that works seamlessly together via wireless controls. Currently, the market that underpins this idea is worth about US$500 billion; however, this is estimated to nearly double over the next 5 years.

Although it might take a while for it to hit the market, Xiaomi's latest battery charging tech — dubbed "Super Charge Turbo" — puts all other fast charging solutions currently available to shame. In a Weibo video shared by Xiaomi's co-founder Lin Bin, this 100 W charging solution is shown fully charging a 4,000 mAh battery in just 17 minutes.

The months of December 2017 through to January 2019 have been associated with declining smartphone sale numbers in the United States on a year-on-year basis. Counterpoint, a market analysis firm, cited the lack of deals on flagships and the government shutdown as factors in the trend as it applied to January.

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 625-powered Motorola One is now finally reaching India alongside the Moto G7, which has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 632 inside. Both handsets have been around for a while in other areas, but Indian customers now get both of them running Android Pie out of the box.

The blog TechPowerUp claims to have accessed the new Intel Graphics Command Center's INF file. It apparently lists the various sub-types of the new, particularly powerful Gen11 integrated GPUs. They may also pertain to Ice Lake and Lakefield CPUs.

Vivo has announced that it will partner with Tencent Games in order to sponsor the annual PUBG Mobile Club Open 2019. This involves competitive battles of the game in question in 10 regions worldwide for an ultimate prize of US$2.5 million. These players will be provided with Vivo hardware in order to play in this tournament.

Samsung's first flexible device, the Galaxy Fold, is now officially displayed on its website as a saleable product. These pages describe the Fold's SoC as a "7nm 64-bit Octa-Core Processor", leading to worries that it may not necessarily be the Snapdragon 855 processor in all markets. However, an analysis of its firmware appears to confirm that this is in fact the case

Mozilla's Firefox for iOS has finally received an update with a set of features tailored for the iPad tablet, such as tab management, split-screen support, single-click private browsing, a comprehensive set of keyboard shortcuts (for those using an external keyboard with their iPad), and more.

Dell Support has informed a customer that any non-factory settings to the processor, such as undervolting, are not covered under warranty. This seems a bit contrary on their own policy, which clearly mentions that the warranty becomes void only if component damage occurs during this process and not by mere change of voltage settings.

Recently introduced in Russia, the Samsung Galaxy A20 will apparently come to other regions with a few minor hardware changes and a slightly different name. Powered by a Samsung Exynos 7885 processor, the Galaxy A20e has been certified by both the Wi-Fi Alliance and Bluetooth SIG. This handset will probably launch globally on April 10.

Described as "the ultimate digital board game," the 21.5-inch Archos Play Tab is a tablet that runs Android Pie and promises to hit the European market for a sub-US$300 price tag just in time for this year's "Back to School" period. The processor brand and model are not public yet, but we should expect a MediaTek Helio P-series chip.

Alleged laptop data has been leaked that mentions an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti with Max-Q design. Although a mobile version of the Turing-based graphics card has been expected for some time now, a Max-Q variant is a new development. Max-Q technology aims to improve energy efficiency but at the cost of performance.

Google’s Stadia cloud-powered streaming gaming service looks to be a technological marvel. However, in order to deliver its full potential gamers will need a robust internet connection.

Nintendo has two new Switch gaming consoles in the works for launch this year. According to the Wall Street Journal, one will be a cheaper entry-level model and the other targeted at more serious gamers.

Codenamed Robusta2 and also known as the Motorola P40 in China, the upcoming — but yet to be confirmed — Motorola One Vision was recently spotted on Geekbench with Exynos 9610 onboard and loaded with Android Pie. Now, what appears to be the first press render is out, and it suggests that the handset will launch in April.

Leaked information about some potential upcoming laptops from Asus suggests that the Taiwanese manufacturer is preparing to reveal devices that feature both Picasso and Turing technology. Three different models are mentioned that combine two different AMD Ryzen APUs with seemingly three Nvidia GeForce GPUs. Asus has already released gaming laptops with the new Picasso chips but not with an Nvidia GPU.

Geologists at the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Plymouth in England have blended an iPhone so they could scrutinize the elements it’s made from more closely. Using their specialist knowledge and skills, the researchers found that the iPhone had enough gold and tungsten in it to be classified as high-grade.

Prices for second-generation AMD Ryzen CPUs have dropped, with US$50 being shaved off a performance-level Ryzen 7 2700 CPU on Newegg. A number of CPUs based on the Zen+ microarchitecture have been discounted, leading to speculation that AMD is making space in its inventory for the upcoming Zen 2-based Ryzen chips.

A screenshot posted on Reddit has been stirring up some excitement among PlayStation 4 owners. The image shows a page from the Brazilian PlayStation Store, and there is a small window advert for EA Access. The EA Access service offers popular games like the Madden NFL series and the NHL range to Xbox One subscribers for US$29.99 a year.

Apple has developed a habit of disappointing its fans by including power bricks that charge at only 5W with its iPhones. However, a new leak has predicted that the company will put an end to this in 2019. It also projects that the next generation of Apple mobile devices will be capable of reverse wireless charging.

Famed overclocker 'Splave' tried out a small experiment to find out whether the newly announced Intel Core i9-9900KF offered any potential advantages over the 9900K when it came to overclocking. The results showed that the 9900KF can go somewhat higher than a binned 9900K on liquid nitrogen. Although the sample size used in this test is small, it does offer an indication that the disabled iGPU in the 9900KF SKU could be useful in overclocking under extreme cooling.

The Sony Xperia XZ3, a few days ago, made the trip over to photography benchmark website DxOMark, where it failed woefully, continuing the trend of Sony flagships being unable to catch up to the competition.

The Honor 8X was released last year on Android Oreo but is now receiving the stable Pie update. The update weighs in at a humongous 3.14 GB and is one that takes the device's software to Huawei's EMUI 9.0 skin.

AMD's use of a multi-chip module (MCM) approach offers quite a few advantages for AMD in terms utilizing TSMC's lines efficiently and also in driving down costs. We are now getting to know that Ryzen 3000 sports a new Infinity Fabric version that offers twice the bandwidth of the previous generation. The chiplet design should also enable AMD to disable cores with minimal loss to cater to the entry level and mid-range markets.

It has been reported that Walmart has been meeting with a number of game developers and publishers to discuss a potential video-game streaming service. With Google just revealing its Stadia service and Nvidia’s GeForce Now platform gearing up for worldwide launch, there’s a good chance cloud gaming is going to revolutionize the way people play video games on a huge scale.

Xiaomi’s official Chinese Weibo account has issued a teaser indicating that it is prepping an update to its 12.5-inch Mi Notebook Air. The teaser shows a scale with the current weight of the device at 1.07 kg hinting at either a refresh or that the company is targeting a sub 1 kg weight target.

Apple used to be the tech company that led consumer technology design unchallenged. After a week of rehashed designs masquerading as, in at least one instance, “all new” product launches, the company feels like it is asleep at the wheel under CEO Tim Cook.

A comprehensive study carried out by Bitwise Asset Management has come to the conclusion that the majority of reported volume in bitcoin trading is faked. Some unethical bitcoin traders are deliberately manipulating the volume to encourage either buying or selling of the cryptocurrency. Bitcoin is currently valued at US$3,965.

The Xperia 1 features a 4K OLED display and, unlike the XZ Premium and XZ2 Premium that only rendered in 4K while viewing content of that resolution, the Xperia 1 will be a full-time 4K display. Yes, even when in system apps like Gallery and Settings.

A designer called Antonio De Rosa has come up with a concept video of what an iPhone foldable smartphone, which is called the iPhone X Fold in the clip, could actually look like. Unsurprisingly, there are plenty of familiar Samsung Galaxy Fold and Huawei Mate X elements in the mix, but the presence of a square triple camera setup and some innovative packaging are highlights.

Users of AMD X470 chipset-based motherboards who have updated to the latest AGESA 0.0.7.x offered by some OEMs over the past week are reporting that the update cripples the Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) from working automatically, requiring manual adjustments via Ryzen Master. The issue seems to have affected some Asus and MSI X470 boards and the only recourse is to downgrade the BIOS (if possible) or wait till a fix for the PBO issue is released.

The chassis has plenty of enthusiast features including per-key RGB lighting and a 1080p144 IPS display, but it comes at the cost of chassis rigidity in some spots and a poor trackpad. While not a bad alternative to more popular gaming laptops, we recommend a warranty extension just to be on the safe side.

Apple's market share in China has reportedly fallen by 26.6% in 2018. Unsurprisingly, the culprits are more 'local' OEMs such as Huawei and Xiaomi, who offer more innovative features in premium handsets that go for less than those from the Cupertino company.

Last year, we reported on rumors that Huawei was working on its first smart TV. Now, a Chinese news outlet claims that its sources have told it these products are nearly ready for release. These products are apparently to be released in 55- or 65-inch variants.

Tencent, which publishes games such as PUBG, has set up a collaboration with Razer in order to improve said apps' function on the gaming hardware giant's Android phones. This involves optimizing Tencent titles for the Razer Phones, as well as for the mobile-gaming peripherals Razer sells.

Beats by Dr. Dre has been an Apple subsidiary for some time now. The brand's next product may be a pair of truly-wireless earbuds. According to a CNET report, they may run on the new Apple H1 chip, which is also found in the newly-released AirPods 2.

Microsoft's plans of introducing a disc-less version of the Xbox One S is well known and we're getting to know that the console is all set for a global launch on May 7. Expected to be known as the Xbox One S All-Digital Edition, the new console will be priced at the lowest tier in the Xbox One family to encourage newcomers to get a feel for the digital ecosystem.

Samsung’s Galaxy A90 mid-range flagship is set to be the company’s first all-screen smartphone with a notchless display as previously rumored. The confirmation came through a Samsung Indonesia website slip up showing what is either the upcoming Galaxy A30 or A50.

Intel has confirmed that it is killing off further development of its Compute Card platform. Similar in size to a credit card, Compute Card was teased at CES 2017 and first unveiled at Computex 2017 and promised modular upgrades for computers, smart TVs and other devices.

The new AMD X570 chipset is expected to be launched soon and a list of motherboards produced by Asus for this particular generation has been leaked. The products being prepared cover a number of well-known Asus lines, including ROG and TUF. ASRock’s upcoming line-up of X570 boards has also been published online.

HMD Global has come up with an official response on the issue of its devices sending sensitive user data to Chinese servers. While the company's reasoning appears sound, it's still a tad appalling that something of this sort is associated with the Nokia brand, especially considering the hardware and software issues the company's devices have been accused of having over the past year.